Report - Thames Water control bunker- blunsdon may 2011

[tommo]

well it was just over 2 years ago now that me and broken managed to crack the thames bunker in blunsdon..........roll on 2 years later and its open again and not much has changed all be it a little bit more water has come in through the emergency hatch, the lights are still on with diesel still in the tank but its still in really good condition and worth seeing

history

all the water utility companys where slightly on edge during the cold war and where made to put there own safe gaurds in place for cleaning up contaminated water in reservoirs for cities,towns and villages in the event of a nuclear fall out and so alot of them set aside a money wasting project to build these safe gaurds in to some areas, Blunsdon near swindon was one of a couple built by Tilbury Douglas Construction Ltd for thames water, They also built bunkers at water reservoirs in donnington and widdenton, originally i thought this was built around the mid 80's and up until i had a really good look through all the paper work left behind alot of the scematics and building diagrams are dated around the early 90's, alot of kit including the generator and air filtration units where supplied around 1992 and 1993, the generator its self was supplied by bristol generator company LTD and the air filtration equipment by LUWA air products in birmingham.

originally designed to house 12 thames water workers who would live in the bunker for up to 30 days, testing and treating the nearby reservoir water making it clean for all to drink, as with many of these utility bunkers they where never really needed but then we can say that about alot of bunkers back then and luckly for us they did press ahead and built it so it gives us something to play in now

i never really got any good pics of this place first time round and with only a 18-55 lens it was nice to get back in and do it with a wide angle this time round, its been well covered last time but i thought i would chuck a report up this time, this is only about half a mile from my house so every now and again i pop up there to check on access and luckly this weekend was a good weekend to check it, so a visit with a couple of local lads and vwdirtyboy was on the cards one evening


this is a mixture of pics from now and 2 years ago

main entrance

main stairs down to the first blast door

first up in to the power plant

next up we walk through to the decontamination area and shower and second air lock

then in to the main room with electric and air plant room off to the door on the right

to the left is the kitchen,dormatores, water supply room and toilets

clean water at the top and waster water at the bottom with hand pump to the left

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